Build Patient Relationships and Your Practice

[Elliot Pearson]

When dentists start comparing their practice with the most successful ones, they’ll notice one thing – good dentists know how to build lasting relationships with their patients. The truth is that patients nowadays aren’t just after the service; they’re after the entire experience in general. When patients are looking for a dentist, they do not just base their decision on which school you graduated from or how long you have been working. They take into consideration on how comfortable and welcomed they feel.

The phone call. Most of the time, your prospects will contact you through your office landline. The wise dentists know better than to underestimate the power of the phone call. Having a cold and indifferent person handle these calls is the easiest way to lose prospects to your competition. Your front office worker should have basic phone call etiquette and genuinely be helpful. By definition of helpful, it isn’t just answering your prospects’ questions but also making things easier for them from booking appointments to suggesting treatments. If your front desk worker isn’t comfortable answering calls, you can always prepare a script for them.

The website. Your dental website is another venue wherein prospects will most likely first know about your practice. But just because you have a dental site does not ensure that you will be able to convert all of your visitors into paying patients. One of the easiest ways to turn away visitors is bymaking website navigation so intricate that visitors feel like they’re in a labyrinth of some sort. If you want to configure your website so that prospects find it easy to call you up or schedule an appointment, take a good look at your navigation tabs and be very particular with the information found in each page. For instance, your Contact page should contain all your important contact information from phone numbers, mailing address, email address and operating hours.

The first visit. The first time that your patient enters your clinic is the most crucial because this experience will help them determine whether they’ll see you again or opt for another dentist. Make the new patient orientation lively and casual. You can ask your receptionist to give your new patient a short tour around the clinic to make them feel more familiar with the entire place and to ease any anxiety that they may have. And make sure to smile and listen to your new patients.